


A Harsh Breath

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 03:56:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/303470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He looks for her, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Harsh Breath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancarett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancarett/gifts).



He looked for her, of course.

Steve and Tony Stark might fight over many things, and Steve - who could never quite stop comparing Tony to his father, no matter how hard he tried - might always find something to fight with Tony about, but the day that Tony sat a laptop between them and informed Steve that today he was going to learn how the 21st century worked, Steve did not offer so much as a harsh breath in resistance.

Instead, he asked simply, "Can it help me find someone?"

Tony blinked, but then shrugged. "Being a creepy stalker on the Internet? That's very possible, Rogers."

"Then show me everything you know."

"That would require us to be here for another 70 years," Tony scoffed, and the look on his face said that he was ready for another of their fights.

But when Steve didn't fall for the bait - Bucky had been a much better sparring partner, anyway - Tony shrugged and began the lesson.

Steve absorbed everything he could from that lesson, and during every spare moment that he wasn't in battle or sleeping, he looked for her.

And to be fair, there were many times he should have been sleeping that he looked for her too.

There was so much about this new world that didn't make sense. The technology, the people, the morals... The Avengers would never be the Howling Commandos, he would never have a friend like Bucky, S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed almost as shady and underhanded as Hydra on some days ... none of these people knew or cared about him before he received the serum. Half of their information seemed to come from the comics that they'd published about Steve when he'd still been dancing with chorus girls.

But Peggy had been an anchor when his world had completely changed the last time, and Steve knew that his successes couldn't have come without her stabilizing guidance.

If only he could find Peggy, the world would make sense again, and Steve never once considered the possibility that she wouldn't be alive, out there, somewhere for him to find. Sure, she'd be older, but people lived longer these days (or so the Internet told him) and medicine was more advanced (or so the Internet had told him) and ...

And he couldn't bare to consider that option.

The choice was taken from him, however, one day after yet another meeting with Fury. It had gone about as well as they ever did, and Steve's hair was still wet from the shower when he walked into the living room of the apartment S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided, to see Tony Stark sitting on his couch, next to a box.

On the top of the box was a compass, and a small feeling of dread began to build in Steve's stomach.

"The next thing I have to show you is how to erase your browsing history," Tony informed him. "You know, if you'd just told me who you were looking for, I could have spared you a lot of trouble."

Steve had considered it. "I'm the one that left her. I wanted to be the one who found her."

Tony sighed and looked genuinely remorseful, and the knot in Steve's stomach tightened again. _No, no, no._ If anyone deserved to live to a ripe old age, it was Peggy. If anyone was strong enough to be over ninety years old, it was Peggy.

"She and my father, they stayed good friends," Tony began, and Steve was glad he'd looked up the information about Howard, because he still wasn't willing to share Peggy with that man, even after 70 years. He was aware of how petty that sounded, however, so he didn't say it aloud. "She's in my parents' wedding photos, and in my baby photos. She used to crash the lavish parties my parents threw, chastise my father about drinking, and generally scandalize all the guests."

They always said that the world flashed before your eyes before you died, but for Steve, that hadn't been true. For Steve, the world that he was never going to have flashed before his eyes as that plane had gone down, and it was doing so again, as Tony talked. Because he saw Peggy at a wedding , with a baby and dancing at parties ... but none of those things had anything to do with _Tony._

"She used to take me out for fondue," Tony continued, jerking Steve back into the present. "Every year, for my birthday. My dad tried to go with us once... but he just looked at the bread for a long time, set it down, and left."

"Peggy was always the stronger of the two of them," Steve said softly.

"That's why she was the spy," Tony said quietly. "She died five years before my parents did, in a mission that she was probably too old for, in the kind of ridiculous self-sacrificing mission that you would have approved of."

 _No._ Steve wanted to yell the denial. He wanted to shake Tony until Tony revealed that it was all an elaborate prank, and that Peggy was really safe and sound in a little cabin somewhere in England.

But even as he swallowed back the ache in his throat, Steve knew that dying that way made much more sense for the kind of woman that Peggy had been than the retirement that Steve had hoped she'd had.

"So the box. It has some things of hers. I guess I'll leave them for you."

Tony stood up and Steve forced himself to say "Thank you for bringing it. I appreciate it."

Tony shook his head. "Don't thank me. Peggy's got a great-niece in S.H.I.E.L.D. Used to poke me with sticks when we'd go out for fondue. But she doesn't like Coulson or Barton, so that makes her better than most of them already. Anyway, she's the one that gave me the box to give to you. I'm just passing it on."

"I'd ... like to meet her someday."

"You already have, but I'll see what I can do about a round two. Maybe over cheese and bread."

"I'd like that, my friend."

Tony blinked, and looked like he had something else to say, but he shook his head and let himself out of the apartment.

Steve went over to the sofa, sat down beside the box and took the compass off of the top. He opened it slowly, and his own face looked back up at him, from a picture taken a lifetime ago. Steve closed the compass and clung to it tightly.

But no matter how tightly he clung, he had no idea how he was ever going to find his way again.


End file.
